“House money”: family budget

Often, many families are faced with the problem of a lack of funds for everyday expenses, the purchase of any large item, and they forget about the annual vacation at sea. The reason for this is simple - they do not know where and what exactly their money “goes to”. But if you don’t count expenses, they can easily exceed income. Therefore, today we will try to figure out together how to competently plan a family budget.

How to manage a family budget

First, let's look at the basic rules and principles of family budgeting:

• First of all, get a special notebook or download a program in which you will keep all your notes.
• Make a budget together, when both husband and wife are involved, it is much easier to control current expenses and plan for future ones.
• To get the most complete picture, collect data on them for at least 2-3 months to analyze all income and expenses.
• Take into account absolutely all expenses, especially small ones, for example, on a chocolate bar for a snack, a cup of coffee in a coffee shop. Often we remember only large purchases, but such “little things” can amount to 10-30% per month of your budget. So don’t be lazy and record everything right away.
• Record all your expenses daily in the program, it takes very little time and greatly simplifies the whole process;
• At first, plan your budget for a period of no more than 1 month; you can gradually increase the time period to six months and a year.
• Be sure to decide what type of budget you have: joint, separate or mixed.
• To motivate yourself, set a goal for yourself, such as a trip to a long-awaited vacation or buying something that your family needs, but there was always not enough money for it.

How to save your family budget

When talking about saving, the most important thing is not to go to extremes, starting to deny yourself all the little things and joys of life. Think carefully about what your family can completely or partially do without, and be sure to weigh the pros and cons.

We offer you several options on how you can save:

• Pay attention to favorable rates from mobile operators and Internet providers.
• Electricity and water. Install energy-saving light bulbs, get into the habit of turning off the lights behind you, and replace daily warm baths with washing in the shower.
• Stock up on groceries and plan menu immediately for a week, and on the remaining days buy essential goods, such as bread, milk, etc.
• Try to eat all the food you buy, because food that spoils and is thrown away is your money wasted.
• Refuse disposable items, such as paper towels, plastic dishes, vacuum cleaner bags for one time use, and by installing a water purification filter you can save on buying bottled water.
• Organize wisely family vacation. Go for walks more often in parks where there are no attractions. If possible, visit entertainment complexes on weekdays; on such days prices are usually lower. Or limit the number of trips on weekends; 1-2 times a month will be enough.
• Some things can be bought second-hand, for example, a used bicycle or scooter will give your child no less pleasure than a new one, which costs twice as much.

How to distribute the family budget

In order to identify your hidden financial “reserves” and not get bogged down in debt, it is very important to correctly distribute the family budget.

Usually it has:

• Two items of income - wages husband and wife;
• Four items of expenses: general for the needs of the family, for children, personal expenses of each of spouses.

Total expenses are in turn divided into:

• Constant: utility bills, training, Internet, cable TV, mobile communications, etc.
• Variables: food, household chemicals, clothes, recreation, entertainment.

In this matter, the main thing is to do everything step by step:

1. First of all, always pay off your debts and close the next loan payment, otherwise they will grow like a snowball.
2. Allocate funds to reserve and savings funds, but this is provided that you have no debts. Although money should be left for unforeseen expenses in any case.
3. Then pay the fixed costs.
4. Distribute whatever remains to variable expenses, children and your needs.

Family budget table

At its core, a family budget is a table that indicates the planned and actual income and expenses of your family.

You can draw it manually in a notebook, but in the age of information technology it is much easier to use the electronic version in MS Excel. When compiling it, you can include those categories that are right for you.

And remember, the more detailed you write down all your expenses, the easier it will be for you to analyze and control them.

Below is a table as an example.

Programs for the family budget

Today there are a large number of different programs and online services for home accounting. Their advantages are that they save time by automating some calculations of your income and expenses. Developers offer free and paid versions of such software.

Here are some of them, the most popular and convenient to work with:

• Home Finance;
• Greedy;
• Home accounting;
• Family budget;
• Alzex Finance;
• Money Tracker;
• Family 12;
• Online service "Drebedengi".